By Kathryna Hoyman · Managing Editor
In last week’s issue, John Hatzis put together an excellent Perspectives page that offered various responses of the student body to the college’s newly adopted statement of faith.
Also last week, I attended three student-initiated worship events, and I have since been thinking about how these events are, in a distinct way, statements of faith.
On Monday, I went to Met By Love, where students gather in Rathburn to begin their week in a time of prayer, worship and a short message. On Thursday, I attended Warriors, during which students meet in the chapel, turn off all the lights except what filters through the stained glass and offer an hour of talented but non-performative worship.
On Sunday, with the snow closing most churches in the local area, I joined the large group of students holding a morning service in Harbison. The idea for the event had been thought up the night before, but it was beautifully executed, with time for worship, liturgy and Bible reading, as well as confession and small-group prayer. In the 15 minutes following the service, friends climbed over pews to greet each other while the worship team continued to casually play music and students filed outside to greet the snow-laden campus with wonder.
I have heard my share of scornful generalizations about “this generation.” I have made them myself. Contemptuous jokes and flippant comments regarding the devastating state of our country, our appalling dependence on technology and the fragile future of the church ease our absorption of the belief, conscious or not, that there is little hope for us.
But amidst the despairing news of the ways that sin is being acted out — truly horrific, hurtful, unjust and inhumane sin — I see Christ who is with us, as he said, “even unto the end of the age.” Further, I see a student body who is aware of this promise and responds in love towards their Messiah, and who, by that love, are the church of Christ.
At this college, we get the privilege, though it be a sometimes uncomfortable one, of worshipping with the same people we do life with: dear friends, students we bump into on the sidewalk, the ones who hear us make irrelevant comments in class, roommates who have to deal with our fluctuating moods … and the list goes on. We don’t dress up and go to church to see the people we worship with. They are in our lives: day in and day out.
In the various discussions surrounding the statement of faith, one of the frequently reiterated considerations was what stances and actions are ultimately the most unifying.
How to best retain the unity of the church in doctrine is no small debate, and I hope that students will continue to discuss the matter thoroughly and act as they see fit. What I hope is not overlooked, however, is that while unified in doctrine, we can neglect worshipping together, communal honesty, the loving of our neighbors and the individual taking up our crosses and following Jesus, thus forgo maintaining “the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace.”
That being said, after a week of worship, I am hopeful that our generation, or at least our generation at Grove City College, is indeed eager to maintain the unity of the church, not only in doctrine, but in practice as well.
